When we got to the ICTR the courtroom itself was entirely full.We were taken to a back conference room that soon filled up with around a hundred people. We watched the proceedings live in the conference room with UN interns, lawyers, and aids for other cases.
We read up for class on the particular case in which a women and her son were being tried in the court. Pauline Nyiramasuhko was minister of family and women's empowerment in the 1994 government. She was accused of incitement to rape and genocide. The indictment said she lead women knowingly to places that were dangerous and they would be raped or killed, or both. Her son was a member of the interahamwe a youth military group accused of many killings. Both Pauline and her son were convicted of genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment. Pauline barely reacted her face stayed relatively the same the entire morning, making me wonder if she even realized what was transpiring. There were three other convictions made cases I had not read. The other three got 25, 30, and 35 years including time served. THis was interesting because they were all convicted of things to the extent of abetting genocide. I was confused on how you could be convicted of anything related to genocide involvement and get 25 and time served, which in this case meant 15. However I cannot fully understand the rulings on those cases since I did not read the indictment or hear the evidence for or against.
The whole processes took around and hour and a half. It was hard for me to grasp what I had witnessed. I was a part of history which has always been a distance concept in my mind. Watching someone get convicted of such horrible things was unsettling to say the least. Pauline was the first women in history to be convicted of genocide. The magnitude of this case in the international law spectrum I have not begun to fathom.
If you want more information some of the new reports will give you more background
Article on the court case results
I do not believe that this was a "war." It was a wholesale slaughter of innocent people for social/ economic/ ethnic reasons. Read the editorial below when you have a chance. There is no doubt that the defense was challenged (as all criminal defense are in case of horrific crimes and human rights outrage) to focus on specific evidence rather than emotion. But I do not believe that a woman who has been on trial for years and who was an intellectual within the government was emotionless because she did not understand the charges or the consequences that she faced. She may have looked that way because she was prepared for the outcome, or maybe because she was, as she was accused, a cold-hearted killer.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0628/Rwanda-takes-a-strict-line-on-genocide-denial.-The-US-should-support-that
i did not intend to imply she was unclear as to what her sentence.I was simply meaning to comment on how strange it was to watch her reaction. I meant to imply she was probably in some since mentally ill. Which is understandable in many respects because if she is guilty of the accused acts she is clearly insane and also if you have been in jail for ten years then ..well you have probably have reached some level of insanity in that period of time. I also did not use war in the sense you seem to understand the word (note the phrase "double genocide.") I know I do not fully understand the whole situation I was just merely pointing out that there was clearly more to the story than the western idea which mainly comes from the movie Hotel Rwanda. I am guessing you feel the same way after reading that article which i feel backs up some of my points.
ReplyDeleteAlso if you dont want me to become a lawyer you should stop talking to me like one because in order to reply accurately and so as to not get yet another lawyer rebuttal I have to reply in the same structure.